1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to apparatus for dispensing coins or tokens. More particularly, it relates to coin dispensing apparatus including a hopper for storing coins in bulk and a rotary disc for delivering the coins from the hopper one at a time and in specific quantities.
2. Related Art Statement
Various coin dispensing apparatus have been known and in particular, an apparatus as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 48,634/1980 to the assignor of the present application or U.K. Patent No. 1,445,089 to Coin Controls Limited has been known as a miniature type coin dispensing apparatus.
Such a miniature type coin dispensing apparatus comprises an inclined substrate, a cylindrical coin container mounted on the substrate, a hopper connected to the top mouth of the coin container for storing coins, a coin transporting rotary disc rotatably mounted on the substrate within the coin container for rotation concentrically with the coin container, means for rotationally driving the rotary disc, an outlet slot provided at the bottom of an outlet portion of the side wall of the coin container and outlet guide means positioned at the outlet portion of the coin container to engage coins entrained by the rotary disc and thereby to cause the course of the coins to direct toward the outlet slot. The coin transporting rotary disc has a plurality of coin receiving apertures spaced apart circumferentially and of diameter to accept the coin to be dispensed and also has a plurality of coin transporting arms radially extending between each adjacent pair of the apertures on the bottom of the rotary disc, whereby coins passing through said apertures to be supported by the substrate are entrained by the coin transporting arms to be transported in the circumferential direction within the coin container when the coin transporting rotary disc is rotated. The coin transporting arms have a radial length such that their outer ends do not extend substantially beyond a circle upon which lie the centers of the coin receiving apertures in order to prevent the arms from interferring with the outlet guide member positioned at the outlet portion of the coin container as mentioned above.
In the coin dispensing apparatus disclosed in the above Japanese Patent Application Publication, each of the transporting arms transports a coin on the substrate in the circumferential direction along the inner side wall of the coin container and at the outlet portion of the coin container cooperates with the guide means to cause the course of the coins to direct toward the outlet slot, but can not push the coin out of the container through the outlet slot in the side wall of the coin container since the radial length of the transporting arms is not enough long to push the coin out of the coin container. Therefore, the coins engaged with the outlet guide means and changed their course toward the outlet slot by the transporting arms must be pushed out of the coin container by the succeeding coins entrained by another transporting arms.
However, such a coin dispensing apparatus has disadvantages that the last one coin left in the coin container can not be subjected the pushing force by to the succeeding coin as mentioned above and therefore one coin usually remains in the coin container and the rate of dispensation is limited by numbers of coin receiving apertures and also by the speed of rotation of the rotary disc since when the speed of rotation of the rotary disc is increased, the coins are often jammed or wedged at the outlet portion.
As a solution to the above problem, the inventor of the present invention has tried to increase the radial length of the transporting arms such that their outer ends extend to the outer periphery of the rotary disc as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 85,895/1977. This solution can dispense the all of coins from the coin container, but does not solve the problem of limited speed of dispensation.
Furthermore, the inventor has proposed as disclosed by Japanese Utility Model Application Laid-Open Publication Nos. 80,873/1984 and 57,867/1985 to provide a recess or pitfall in the substrate at the outlet portion of the coin container such that coins transported by the transporting arms or the coin receiving apertures of the rotary disc on the substrate are dropped in the pitfall and to provide a scraper having a plurality of scraping arms radially extending from the central portion at which the scraper is mounted on a scraper shaft at the out side of the coin container such that the outer ends of the rotating scraping arms enter successively into the pitfall, whereby dropped coins in the pitfall are scraped out by the scraping arms.
It is however found that such arrangement of the pitfall and the scraper has a disadvantage that the coins dropped in the pitfall are not subjected to any controlled feed action by the transporting arms and this results in that the scraping arms of the scraper do not effectively engage the coins in the pitfall so that the coins can not be effectively scraped out the pitfall by the scraper and are often caused to jam at the outlet portion and therefore the dispensation speed can not be increased as expected.